The Rant: All the noise, mechanism, and opinions fit to print
Friday has been breached, so let's get into it.
A few thoughts while my forearm recovers from a second degree burn. Like murder in the second degree, there was zero intention behind placing my skin too close to the exhaust pipe of a pickup truck, but there it was catching some heat in the Thursday afternoon sky in midtown as I fixed a gear shifter. There’s nothing like fixing a truck in a McDonald’s parking lot that you just delivered plumbing to. Yelling at the plumber as the car drifts into a shift-less state and your foot reaches for the parking brake… good times.
The bubble of fluid that builds up around the burn is supposed to be protective, but it just looks like someone stuck some prescription medication inside my skin for safekeeping. After draining it last night, it has returned this morning. For protection, I get it. Still, count me among the people who have no desire to work in a hot kitchen or body shop, where this would be a normal occurrence. The skin is already the first thing to go; heat isn’t necessary to accelerate the process.
It’s not just the arm where I feel a deep burn; the right knee throbs like a dog itching their ear or back. You know years of age are being collected when you have zero clue how a body part was injured. All one knows is that the pain is there and not going away, which just leads to more pain meds. At the end of it all, one feels like Jake Taylor in Major League, when he’s dropping two large ice bags on his knees. That’ll be me in less than a year if I choose to go for a run on concrete.
My wayward uncle had a breakthrough thought: Running on pavement does me no favors. Notes, but I don’t care. Sometimes in life, you’re going to do things that seem stupid to others but makes sense in your life.
That impeccable concrete force that pushes back against the feet with every step does pose a long-term threat, but it’s the way I’d like it. Pardon all the treadmill ramblers, but I just can’t do it. Running in place sounds about as fun as panicking in place, even if the theory is orange or the room is dark. Everything is more isolated, meaning all the breathing and tiny cries of pain from my joints can be heard and accounted for.
I prefer the open outside road, full of mysteries and weather shifts. You may be roasting on Wherry, but you’ll be cool on Macklind. As long as I don’t stay on the road for more than three miles, the sun can’t roast my arms like an exhaust pipe. The music hits harder outside because it’s easy to place your imagination into scenarios that help a run, as in I’m running and gunning for a mile as I imagine a movie taking place in south city.
There’d be an action scene in my stomach if too much candy is consumed, which is why I turned to Swedish Fish. There isn’t a doctor on this planet that could tell me a fish diet is bad for the body; it’s merely a catching zone in Sweden instead of the Atlantic Ocean. There’s fish oils and nutrients in the healthy kind of fish, but Swedish Fish just taste better. And it’s a fish!
Riding a scooter around can feel like a fish out of water. All I want to do is get from A to B without getting plowed by a car, but riding among angry, underachieving former momma’s boys isn’t for the non-weary souls. It’s usually a car going fast behind me while a car goes slow in front of me, the result of an overall angst towards people who don’t pour boatloads of gas into their vehicle. Due to my car basically deciding its transmission was done operating, the Yamaha has been my transport buddy. Maybe all those angry drivers are pissed that I only need to put three dollars into my gas tank to fill it up.
In case you missed it or I didn’t care to write about it, I’m back on the truck delivering plumbing supplies to the greater St. Louis county area. After some brief training and a hard test, I passed and got my truck back. Do I have the full faith of everybody in my workplace that I can do the job? Not everybody, but I’m starting to think that’s a common gripe. Someone in a building will base a couple mistakes or encounters as the thesis statement for what someone can or can’t do, and there’s nothing one can do about that.
All you can do is continue to be as good and sharp as you can, clearing out the mechanism in the personal life and keeping the palette clean at work to be effective. Whenever I run into a wall, I remember that high paid baseball players have to deal with personal adulting and accountability as well, only on a much larger scale. Nobody is watching me screw up or paying for a TV service to watch me deliver sinks and tubs. (That could be a cool show for the Bravo network, though.)
Long story told kind of shorter, do your best and tell yourself that’s enough. Remember that other people are dealing with their own crap and filtering their reactions to you through that funnel, whether they like it or not. It’s a part of being human: Telling ourselves that we’re in this together even though our mind tries to convince us we are alone.
That’s all I have today, my friends. Be well out there, and stay away from super hot exhaust pipes. Also, I hope you have a boss at work as cool and thoughtful as Jeff Crump. You may not know him, but I do. He’s our Crescent GM, and much better than John Mo-doesn’t know-zeliak.
Friday is dying, I’m not crying, and I’m officially out of words.